Art School Confidential

Director: Terry Zwigoff
Screenwriter: Daniel Clowes (based on his short comic)
Stars:
Max Minghella as Jerome
Sophia Myles as Audrey

Also features Anjelica Houston, John Malkovich, and Jim Broadbent with a cameo by Steve Buscemi

Terry Zwigoff directed one film I like and one film I love. The one I liked was another Daniel Clowes adaptation, Ghost World. The one I loved was the Christmas Anti-Classic Bad Santa. Both films did away with the usual cliche characters to look at real people or, as others might call them, weirdoes. Both films also had some troublesome endings: Ghost World ended too vaguely. Bad Santa ended with what felt like a cop-out though I suspect that Zwigoff intended this. Art School Confidential ends well enough but, like many professional critics have said, it already colapsed in the second half of the film.

Perhaps it collapsed even before this. Art School Confidential is muddled with unintended plot threads that never go anywhere and characters that are either slaves to the plot or are cliches that don't belong in the plot.

The story starts with Jerome (relative newcomer Max Minghella), a gifted artist who gets accepted into a lofty art school. His desire is to become the greatest artist of the 21st century. The film tells us explicitly that he thinks he's better than everyone else but it never really shows us this. He has outbursts in class where he puts down the work of other students but even though his work is technically better we never see anything that says he has any talent beyond the mechanical. Just as Jerome's criticisms of others are accurate, so are his peers criticisms accurate of him. It doesn't help that he has the personality of a sponge and the motivations of a white-washed caveman.

Jerome falls in love with Audrey (Sophia Myles), another mysterious character who probably shouldn't be mysterious but, unlike the annoying Jerome, these mysteries are more appealing and our disappointment in not having them solved is sweeter than it is sour, but the sourness comes from Audrey performing actions that, like Jerome's, leave us thinking "and you did that because you what now?"

There's something to be said about a film that trusts it viewers to know whats going on so much that it doesn't bother to tell them what's going on. Unfortunately, in the case of Art School, it either says that Zwigoff and Clowes think that we're all telepaths who can read their thoughts via their films or, more likely, it says that Zwigoff and Clowes spent too much time skewering the art world and creating a clever plot to think about the fact that their two main characters didn't make sense and were surrounded by cliches that weren't even good cliches.

There's little else that needs to be said about the story line unless you want the movie spoiled. There is a serial killer who appears although his timing is off with the reactions of the other characters at the end. The film is aware of this with one important character indicating that he knows that what everyone else assumes isn't true. That, however, doesn't explain that it makes no sense for everyone to jump to the conclusion that they do.

It also doesn't quite make sense for the film to end when it does although its conclusion isn't at a bad place. Relative to other films and what the likely sequence of events would be had the film continued on, Art School does itself a favor by stopping short. However, because of this, we miss out on potentially interesting events and what could have been a more satisfying ending be it happy or sad.

In the middle of all of this are plot threads that don't belong or that go nowhere. I love a good subplot but when it doesn't connect to the main plot I can't understand why they're there. Ethan Suplee, who I'll mention later, is a film student doing a movie on the serial killer. As funny as his storyline was it could have been cut without any damage. There's a running gag of a male fashion student who's gay and in denial but who cares? We also have an Animal House style buddy (Joel Moore as Bardo) who disappears halfway through the movie seemingly because the filmmakers don't know what to do with him. There are also hints of what could have, would have, or should have been plot threads featuring John Malkovich that don't go anywhere and were possibly only left in because he was one of the producers.

While it might seem like I'm down on the film I didn't find it a waste of money. John Malkovich provides one of the largest surprises in this film simply in that when you watch him you forget that you're watching John Malkovich. He doesn't do anything fancy or even terribly interesting. He just stops acting like John Malkovich "acting." For a long time I've felt that Malkovich was one of the most overrated actors on screen. In many films, especially period pictures, he seems almost amateurish. His expressions are stiff and his dialogue delivery is cold and stale but in this he's just so natural. There is so much to be said for being natural in films that I could do an entire post on it.

There are also some other good performances and scenes including a hot new artist played by who justifies his own assholiness and garners applause for it--although he does this by being, you guessed it, vague--and a nice turn for Ethan Suplee as a parody of Kevin Smith. Perhaps the one good way this film was vague was in how you couldn't tell whether Ethan's role was meant to be a ribbing tribute or an insult.

Overall this film had a lot of potential and a lot to say but Zwigoff and Clowes are so concerned with being clever that they ignore common wisdom. They provide us with a main character that doesn't make sense, a romantic interest that doesn't make sense, supporting characters who do make sense but don't do anything special, and a lot of loose ends. I respect the film enough not to give too much away, which is why I have been vague myself with the storyline, but I think a much better film was possible given the material. This film is a lesson in focusing on story and character and not getting wrapped up in clever jokes and social statements.